Partners eCare Premiere: A Glimpse at BWH’s Build of New System

For two days in December, more than 2,000 people throughout the Partners system took part in the Partners eCare (PeC) Enterprise Premiere, an up-close look at how the new Epic-based electronic health record system will work.

BWH and BWFH will be the first hospitals in the system to fully implement PeC, with a go-live date scheduled for May 30. During the next five years, the enterprise-wide health information system will integrate all clinical, administrative and revenue systems across Partners.

BWHers who attended the viewing shared their thoughts on the premiere:

“PeC is going to change most aspects of how we care for patients at BWH. It will enable us to share information that has previously existed in silos, allow us to better engage our patients in their own care and help us to better assess and improve the care that we provide through enhanced data accessibility. It also will help us make the care across our various sites—and the patient experience as they move across those sites—more seamless.”

“I think the final build reflects a lot of hard work and compromise across the various institutions and Epic. We will surely have some growing pains upon implementation; however, I’m entirely confident BWH will adapt quickly and in almost no time, we’ll find ourselves working more efficiently and with a more comprehensive and accessible medical record.”

“The demo I saw at the premiere highlighted a very smooth process to follow a patient from one episode of care to the next. The build has tried to make it very intuitive for clinicians to know what information is needed and when. The admission and discharge navigators were a great example of this. A lot of work has been done to support our clinicians’ workflows and ensure we get the right information to care for our patients. I love the fact that certain data elements remain from encounter to encounter and within an admission as well. This eliminates the need to ask the patient the same questions every time a new clinician meets them. We can now validate the data with the patient instead of starting from scratch. This will make our patients feel like they are known to us.”

–Anne Bane, MSN, RN, Nurse Director, Clinical Systems Innovations

“‘Interdisciplinary’ will be more than just a concept; it will be reality with PeC. Interdisciplinary is the only effective approach to identifying issues and providing care to our complex patients and their families. In other words, interdisciplinary care is our mission, and PeC will help us achieve it.”

–Vincent Vacca, MSN, RN, CCRN, Nurse Educator, Neuroscience ICU

“Nearly all details of the transition have been considered. I am impressed with the extent to which all the varying teams of the hospital have worked together to learn how one another functions. Although there is bound to be discomfort initially, and hiccups will be inevitable, the software is indeed impressive and will serve as an excellent platform for the next generation of patient care.”